Joe Johnston has signed on as co-director of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms alongside Lasse Hallström. Disney’s live-action adaptation of the E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1816 holiday classic is set to hit domestic theaters November 2. "I watched an early cut of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and I saw something unique…

EXCLUSIVE: Director Lasse Hallstrom and producer Laura Bickford are teaming to make a movie based on investigative reporter Leslie Kean's bestselling book UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. Kean is one of three reporters who broke the widely-covered, recent story on the front page of…

You probably have heard the controversy over the alleged mistreatment of a German Shepherd named Hercules during the making of A Dog’s Purpose. Using an edited video and pursuing its agenda to keep all animals out of movies and be replaced by CGI creations, PETA has decided to use this Universal family release as a…

“What is the meaning of life … and why does food taste so much better in the trash?” Those questions and others have hounded pooches for centuries — right? — and now comes a film that digs for the answers. Here is the first trailer for A Dog’s Purpose, Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom’s family film about a dog…

Disney has set Lasse Hallstrom to direct The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a live-action adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s Christmas Eve tale about a young girl who finds a Nutcracker doll among the family's gifts and is charged by her parents to take special care of it. Under the cover of darkness, the Nutcracker…

EXCLUSIVE: Will Ferrell has been set to star in comedy Tom’s Dad for Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallström. The news was announced today by producers Joni Levin and Keith Clarke of Point Blank Productions (Ben Hur); Christi Dembrowski and Johnny Depp of Infinitum Nihil; and Arsenal's John Ptak (The Way Back)…

EXCLUSIVE: Lasse Hallstrom has committed to next direct A Dog’s Purpose, an Audrey Wells-scripted adaptation of the W. Bruce Cameron novel. Gavin Palone and Mark Sourian are producing and Alan Blomquist is executive producer. Cameron, an insider whose credits include 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Daughter, wrote the…

Relativity has optioned the Ron Chernow book Titan: The Life Of John D. Rockefeller and will develop a feature on America’s first billionaire for Lasse Hallstrom to direct. Script will be written by Craig Borten, who is Oscar-nominated for Dallas Buyers Club. The patriarch of one of the country’s richest families…

EXCLUSIVE: DreamWorks is setting Lasse Hallstrom to direct The Hundred-Foot Journey, an adaptation of the Richard C. Morais novel about the rivalry between an Indian restaurant that is 100 feet away from a three-Michelin-star restaurant in France. The French restaurant is run by the famous eccentric chef Madame…

This weekend’s specialty releases includes Friends With Kids, which will open in over 300 locations on one end and doc Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, slated for two initial runs in New York before heading slowly out in other cities on the other. Fresh from its string of Berlin acquisitions, Adopt Films will open The Ballad Of G…

CBS Films picked up Salmon Fishing In The Yemen as a possible awards contender after it premiered at Toronto in the fall, but the distributor decided it was too late for the tale of Middle East politics and fly-fishing to enter this year’s Oscar race. It instead has set it for a limited-run release March 2, 2012. Ewan…

Was the 2011 Toronto Film Festival a good one for dealmaking? Even after organizers announced a 20% uptick in film deals last Friday (the festival includes foreign territories in its count), the sales kept coming. A long-expected deal with Lionsgate on the Jennifer Westfeldt-directed comedy Friends With Kids finally…